Walt Disney will close five locations of its ESPN Zone on June 16 as the company found it increasingly difficult to operate the restaurants, according to The Associated Press.
The company announced that the restaurant’s locations in Baltimore, New York, Chicago, Las Vegas and Washington, D.C. will close, while the Anaheim and Los Angeles restaurants will remain open and managed by other companies. “The overall economics of continuing this operation were very challenging,” ESPN Zone General Manger Dominic Minniti told the Wall Street Journal.
The restaurant served American grill food and offered an arena of interactive sports games and sports viewing. The company’s first location opened in 1998 at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor and expanded to nine locations throughout the country. The Atlanta and Denver locations closed in 2009 as a result of the same economic problems.